Given the considerable increase in the total volume of digital data generated worldwide (2.7 zettabits in 2012), it is essential that the storage density (storage capacity per unit area) of non-volatile mass storage continues to increase. This increase must help rein back the proliferation of storage media, while meeting the compactness requirements of mobile applications and reducing the energy footprint.
The market for non-volatile mass storage is currently divided between hard disks (for computers and data centers) and flash memories for mobile applications (smartphones, ultraportables, etc.). Although the performance of these two technologies has advanced significantly in recent years, they will encounter major technological barriers by 2015 in terms of density as well as access speed and stability over time.
New concepts of non-volatile MRAM (STT-MRAM, Race Track Memory, TAS-MRAM, etc.) are therefore under development as competitors against flash memory as well as DRAM and SRAM.
However, these new technologies are hampered by technological barriers related to the magnetic materials used.
Such memory is based on magnetic materials which are synthesized at ambient temperature in amorphous form and then annealed at high temperature (300° C. for 1 to 2 hours) to obtain a crystalline phase having the required properties, particularly a high magnetic anisotropy and a strong magnetoresistance signal.
However, these high temperatures can degrade the properties of the material, which after thermal annealing will generally have more structural defects responsible for less uniformity in the magnetic properties.
In addition, these high temperatures mean a significant energy expenditure, which is undesirable in processes executed on an industrial scale.